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1Concerning all this, it is much to be deplored that the mast-heads of a southern whale ship are unprovided with those
2enviable little tents or pulpits, called crow's-nests, in which the look-outs of a Greenland whaler are protected from
3the inclement weather of the frozen seas. In the fireside narrative of Captain Sleet, entitled "A Voyage among the
4Icebergs, in quest of the Greenland Whale, and incidentally for the re-discovery of the Lost Icelandic Colonies of Old
5Greenland;" in this admirable volume, all standers of mast-heads are furnished with a charmingly circumstantial account
6of the then recently invented crow's-nest of the Glacier, which was the name of Captain Sleet's good craft. He called it
7the Sleet's crow's-nest, in honor of himself; he being the original inventor and patentee, and free from all ridiculous
8false delicacy, and holding that if we call our own children after our own names (we fathers being the original
9inventors and patentees), so likewise should we denominate after ourselves any other apparatus we may beget. In shape,
10the Sleet's crow's-nest is something like a large tierce or pipe; it is open above, however, where it is furnished with
11a movable side-screen to keep to windward of your head in a hard gale. Being fixed on the summit of the mast, you ascend
12into it through a little trap-hatch in the bottom. On the after side, or side next the stern of the ship, is a
13comfortable seat, with a locker underneath for umbrellas, comforters, and coats. In front is a leather rack, in which to
14keep your speaking trumpet, pipe, telescope, and other nautical conveniences. When Captain Sleet in person stood his
15mast-head in this crow's-nest of his, he tells us that he always had a rifle with him (also fixed in the rack), together
16with a powder flask and shot, for the purpose of popping off the stray narwhales, or vagrant sea unicorns infesting
17those waters; for you cannot successfully shoot at them from the deck owing to the resistance of the water, but to shoot
18down upon them is a very different thing. Now, it was plainly a labor of love for Captain Sleet to describe, as he does,
19all the little detailed conveniences of his crow's-nest; but though he so enlarges upon many of these, and though he
20treats us to a very scientific account of his experiments in this crow's-nest, with a small compass he kept there for
21the purpose of counteracting the errors resulting from what is called the "local attraction" of all binnacle magnets; an
22error ascribable to the horizontal vicinity of the iron in the ship's planks, and in the Glacier's case, perhaps, to
23there having been so many broken-down blacksmiths among her crew; I say, that though the Captain is very discreet and
24scientific here, yet, for all his learned "binnacle deviations," "azimuth compass observations," and "approximate
25errors," he knows very well, Captain Sleet, that he was not so much immersed in those profound magnetic meditations, as
26to fail being attracted occasionally towards that well replenished little case-bottle, so nicely tucked in on one side
27of his crow's nest, within easy reach of his hand. Though, upon the whole, I greatly admire and even love the brave, the
28honest, and learned Captain; yet I take it very ill of him that he should so utterly ignore that case-bottle, seeing
29what a faithful friend and comforter it must have been, while with mittened fingers and hooded head he was studying the
30mathematics aloft there in that bird's nest within three or four perches of the pole. But if we Southern whale-fishers
31are not so snugly housed aloft as Captain Sleet and his Greenlandmen were; yet that disadvantage is greatly
32counter-balanced by the widely contrasting serenity of those seductive seas in which we South fishers mostly float. For
33one, I used to lounge up the rigging very leisurely, resting in the top to have a chat with Queequeg, or any one else
34off duty whom I might find there; then ascending a little way further, and throwing a lazy leg over the top-sail yard,
35take a preliminary view of the watery pastures, and so at last mount to my ultimate destination. Let me make a clean
36breast of it here, and frankly admit that I kept but sorry guard. With the problem of the universe revolving in me, how
37could I--being left completely to myself at such a thought-engendering altitude--how could I but lightly hold my
38obligations to observe all whale-ships' standing orders, "Keep your weather eye open, and sing out every time." And let
39me in this place movingly admonish you, ye ship-owners of Nantucket! Beware of enlisting in your vigilant fisheries any
40lad with lean brow and hollow eye; given to unseasonable meditativeness; and who offers to ship with the Phædon instead
41of Bowditch in his head. Beware of such an one, I say; your whales must be seen before they can be killed; and this
42sunken-eyed young Platonist will tow you ten wakes round the world, and never make you one pint of sperm the richer. Nor
43are these monitions at all unneeded. For nowadays, the whale-fishery furnishes an asylum for many romantic, melancholy,
44and absent-minded young men, disgusted with the carking cares of earth, and seeking sentiment in tar and blubber. Childe
45Harold not unfrequently perches himself upon the mast-head of some luckless disappointed whale-ship, and in moody phrase
46ejaculates:-- "Roll on, thou deep and dark blue ocean, roll! Ten thousand blubber-hunters sweep over thee in vain." Very
47often do the captains of such ships take those absent-minded young philosophers to task, upbraiding them with not
48feeling sufficient "interest" in the voyage; half-hinting that they are so hopelessly lost to all honorable ambition, as
49that in their secret souls they would rather not see whales than otherwise. But all in vain; those young Platonists have
50a notion that their vision is imperfect; they are short-sighted; what use, then, to strain the visual nerve? They have
51left their opera-glasses at home. "Why, thou monkey," said a harpooneer to one of these lads, "we've been cruising now
52hard upon three years, and thou hast not raised a whale yet. Whales are scarce as hen's teeth whenever thou art up
53here." Perhaps they were; or perhaps there might have been shoals of them in the far horizon; but lulled into such an
54opium-like listlessness of vacant, unconscious reverie is this absent-minded youth by the blending cadence of waves with
55thoughts, that at last he loses his identity; takes the mystic ocean at his feet for the visible image of that deep,
56blue, bottomless soul, pervading mankind and nature; and every strange, half-seen, gliding, beautiful thing that eludes
57him; every dimly-discovered, uprising fin of some undiscernible form, seems to him the embodiment of those elusive
58thoughts that only people the soul by continually flitting through it. In this enchanted mood, thy spirit ebbs away to
59whence it came; becomes diffused through time and space; like Cranmer's sprinkled Pantheistic ashes, forming at last a
60part of every shore the round globe over. There is no life in thee, now, except that rocking life imparted by a gently
61rolling ship; by her, borrowed from the sea; by the sea, from the inscrutable tides of God. But while this sleep, this
62dream is on ye, move your foot or hand an inch; slip your hold at all; and your identity comes back in horror. Over
63Descartian vortices you hover. And perhaps, at mid-day, in the fairest weather, with one half-throttled shriek you drop
64through that transparent air into the summer sea, no more to rise for ever. Heed it well, ye Pantheists!
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